Girl’s lacrosse started off the year with their first interest meeting of the season on Oct. 23. These meetings are held for new and returning players to get together and raise excitement for the upcoming season in the spring. The meeting gave the players important information about fundraising and opportunities in the offseason to practice their skills and prepare for the competitive high school season to come.
Kate Pearson, head varsity coach for girls lacrosse at Park, said the meetings help prepare everyone before the season starts and ensure that everyone is involved throughout the whole process.
“Our interest meetings in the fall help to make sure that everyone is on the same page, and that if there are any new players who are interested in playing, then they get involved early so they can be a part of the team right away,” Pearson said.
Junior captain Rylie Bohn said the captains had a lot of preparation work with the coaches to ensure they were giving all the right information out to returning and prospecting players. According to her, the responsibility of the captains is to work on how they can get their numbers up through different recruitment tactics.
“We had to meet all of our captains together, and then we also had to meet with our coach and we had to plan out what we had to say and what we were going to talk about,” Bohn said. “Then we also had to do recruiting in order to have people at the interest meeting. Overall just putting up flyers and posting stuff to make sure we get people here (were our duties as captains).”
Pearson said the meetings are important for new players wanting to learn more about the team and how they can join if it feels right to them, without the added pressure of harsh deadlines.
“The meetings help to give new players who are interested in playing an idea of what we do, who is on the team and how they can be involved right away, so they don’t feel pressured to just start something right away,” Pearson said. “(Potential athletes) can trickle in throughout the year and have some time to decide (if they want to play lacrosse).”
According to Freshman Lydia Hildre, she’s excited to get to know the current team better. She said the pressure of not having enough girls is something she’s worried about this year, but she doesn’t see that being a future problem.
“It’s good to know some of the faces that I’m going to see at lacrosse. It’s also good to know that this year is going to be the only year where (the team) worrys about how many girls we’re going to have, but I think it’s going to be fun,” Hildre said.
Bohn said she and other captains are working to gain more interest in the sport by utilizing different forms of media and word of mouth around the school to build participation.
“We’re going to continue to put flyers out about our season, and about lacrosse,” Bohn said. “We are planning on posting a lot on our Instagram, and we also have a TeamSnap, and we’re going to post a lot on there and just continue to spread the word (about our team’s upcoming events) through mouth as well.”
Pearson said involvement is what she wants to see the most out of interest meetings. According to her, it’s important that being a part of a school team doesn’t fully take up all of an athlete’s time.
“To get more involvement (is the goal of interest meetings). We’re not gonna necessarily add more things to do,” Pearson said. People are really busy, and we don’t want to overload them with things, and I want them to do other things too; lacrosse is not everyone’s life.”
Hilder said she is ready for the season even though it is going to be tough preparing for the spring while actively participating in other sports as well. According to her, even though it’s going to be difficult dealing with two sports at once, the interest meetings help her feel out what preparation she needs for the lacrosse season.
“I definitely think I’m getting prepared (for the lacrosse season). I know with basketball it’s probably going to be a little harder to get prepared (for the lacrosse season), but I think it’s going to help,” Hildre said.
